Meditation Alone Will Not Make You A Better Person

Most of scientific studies on meditation have shown it benefits our cardiovascular and mental health and wellness. Practice of regular meditation can increase brain density, boost connections between neurons, decrease symptoms of depression and anxiety, provide clarity of thought, and increase positive mood endorphins. Other published studies have shown meditation can improve physical functioning, decrease chronic disease risks, and enhance overall quality of life. However, few of these studies follow the participants for years to discover how they interact within systems driven by human dynamics.

If we were to know how meditation helps us become better people, then why don’t we become those better people. Chances are, meditation is not that path to being better, but simply connecting more to aspects of our lives that increase our awareness of who we are. So the practice of being human happens

The study by scientists at Coventry University in the UK, Massey University in New Zealand, and Radboud University in the Netherlands, reviewed more than 20 studies that investigated the effect of various types of meditation, such as mindfulness and loving-kindness, on pro-social feelings and behaviours.

Initial analysis indicated that meditation did have an overall positive impact, likely due to how participants integrate the peace in their daily lives.

The researchers said meditation made people feel moderately more compassionate or empathic, compared to if they had done no other new emotionally-engaging activity.

However further analysis revealed that it played no significant role in reducing aggression or prejudice or improving how socially-connected someone was as this is correlated with the non-meditative state.

The most unexpected result of this study, though, was that the more positive results found for compassion had important methodological flaws — compassion levels in some studies only increased if the meditation teacher was also an author of the published report.

Overall, these results suggest that the moderate improvements reported by psychologists in previous studies may be the result of methodological weaknesses and biases, said the researchers.

Their research — published today in Scientific Reports — only included randomised controlled studies, where meditators were compared to other individuals that did not meditate.

All these studies used secular meditation techniques derived from Buddhism, such as mindfulness and loving-kindness meditation, but not other related activities, like yoga or Tai-Chi.

“The popularisation of meditation techniques, like mindfulness, despite being taught without religious beliefs, still seem to offer the hope of a better self and a better world to many. We wanted to investigate how powerful these techniques were in affecting one’s feelings and behaviours towards others.